MILAN— Little-known Charly Suarez sparkled with a fireball conquest of a tall and game Romanian foe Thursday and showed everybody in the XV World Amateur Boxing Championships what Philippine boxing is all about.
The dusky, cool-faced college dropout from Panabo City in Davao del Sur ducked, sniped and scored with two-fisted counters, very much like a devilish bomb thrower who kept his tracks well covered.
The result was a balanced 18-8 mastery of favored featherweight Ilian Stan, a rangy veteran who, although three inches taller than Suarez, was lucky to have finished in one piece.
It was thus far the most sensational stand by a Filipino fighter, and Suarez’s display of guts and skills boosted the stock of the Philippine team.
The obscure Suarez, who dropped out of a commerce course in third year, raised the five-man RP team’s record to 3-1 record in this exacting tournament, the strongest start by a national boxing contingent in recent memory.
Light welterweight Genebert Basadre was to fight Brazil’s Myke Carbaho late Friday hoping to improve on his modest result in the preliminaries.
Joan Tipon, winner over a vastly improved Sri Lankan in the first round, faces a grizzled Algerian punching machine on Saturday.
But all eyes are on two-time Olympian Harry Ta?amor, who debuts against Huyhannes Danielyan, a combative Armenian, also on Saturday after drawing a bye in the first round.
Fans look forward to Sunday’s program at the Mediolanum Forum where Suarez, 21, will go for his second win in another bold bid against an even taller opponent in the lanky Joo Min-jae of South Korea, who could be five inches taller than the 5-foot-5 Filipino bet.
Suarez, in only his second big international outing, got a rude welcome—a stiff straight to the face after the first bell. Stunned, he countered to even up at 1-all only to get caught by another straight to the face to fall behind again.
With the count at 2-all, Suarez arched, ducked and, marble eyes flaring, dug in with fiery combinations to take a 6-2 lead.
Suarez was both sharp and fearsome in the second round. After finding his range, he roared and blasted his rattled foe with two-fisted explosions, scoring rare back-to-back points within a second, to take the round, 12-5.
Suarez later threw a victorious punch into the air to celebrate the win.
But even before that, amazed fans had stopped wondering what sort of boxers are raised in the poor country where the superstar Manny Pacquiao comes from.
